The Test of Heroes
by Envirosuit
Summary: Five heroes are thrown together to try and withstand a test given to many before them. Can they break a vicious cycle of death? Some of the heroes ahd already done so themselves, can they do it again? Crossovers: Batman, Mass Effect, Dead Space, Fallout New Vegas, Timesplitters and many other mentioned categories. Cover is something I threw together in photoshop.
1. Chapter 1

The test of heroes

A fun crossover I made, mainly between White Noise, Slender, Dead Space, Fallout New Vegas, Mass Effect, Timesplitters and Batman. Other genres mentioned.

_Query: Can I kill him now, master? I would like ever so much to crush his neck, just a little. It is a long-time fantasy of mine._

_HK-47, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic._

I do not own anything mentioned.

Shepard POV

Shepard awoke with a start. He seemed to be lain in a field of sorts, at night. The only light that could be seen was four activated flashlights on the floor. As Shepard picked one up, he turned to see four other figures lain out on the grass.

One of them seemed to be wearing a highly technological suit, which had a bulkier appearance due to the amount of armour plating attached which looked like it reinforced the helmet, abdomen and leggings as well as a forearm guard for the right arm. He was slowly pulling himself to his feet, groping for a flashlight as he did.

Another man was already steady on his feet, having picked up a flashlight. He wore an armour coloured entirely in black, with a black cape as well. He had greaves with three sharp wave-shaped blades sticking out. He also had a helmet on, which covered all of his head except for his mouth. He had fairly tan skin, and his eyes were a bright blue. The helmet had pointed ears on the top as well.

A third man seemed to either still be unconscious, or simply couldn't get up. He had a massive set of armour on, which looked bulky and was most likely offline. The armour looked high-tech, yet slightly primitive. He had a strange bulky watch on his right arm that the armour seemed to mould around. His helmet looked vaguely like a gasmask.

A fourth and final man was groaning, gripping his head as he sat up. He was bald and had some strange goggles on. They were fully black on the inside with red dots which may indicate where the eyes are pointing. He had a simple ballistic vest on with some underclothes. He also had elbow pads, knee pads and heavy militaristic boots. He had a strange device on his left arm and he also carried strange weapons on his back, he was even carrying a crossbow!

"Who are you people?" Shepard asked, putting his hand on his pistol.

"We should be asking you the same question." The man in the bat-like costume growled, staring directly at him.

The first man Shepard had saw then stood up. As Shepard pointed his flashlight at him, the man recoiled.

"Whoa, go easy on the lights! Damn, it's good to finally meet people possibly trying not to kill me!" The man said as his helmet took itself apart and tucked itself away. The man looked to be in his mid-forties, with greying hair, he also looked unshaved and haggard.

"That can easily be arranged if someone doesn't help me!" A tinny, resounding voice rung out. Shepard and the others looked to the set of armour on the floor, which looked to be only being able to twitch its fingers.

"Shut up! Damn, my head…" The bald man groaned.

"Listen, we all seem to be lost in this forest. I'll just call for an evac and get us out of here." Shepard said, as he activated his omni-tool. He tried to place a call to the alliance, only to receive no signal.

"What is that?" The man in the bat costume asked, staring at Shepard's omni-tool.

"What, this? It's my omni-tool. I can't seem to get a signal though, you try yours."

"What in the hell is an omni-tool?" The bald man asked, picking up a flashlight.

"Are you serious? Everybody has one." Shepard replied, looking quite puzzled.

"Positive." The elderly looking man answered, crossing his arms.

The man in the bat costume chose this moment to go over and help the man in the armour, stuck on the floor.

As Shepard argued with the two, the man in the bat costume managed to successfully help the man stuck to the ground. As he finished, the man's armour seemed to just de-atomise itself, before disappearing into his watch. The man then pulled himself up as a jumpsuit appeared on him, which was blue with yellow outlines. It was quite primitive, as well as the 10mm pistol he was carrying was.

"What the hell was that?" Shepard loudly questioned, drawing his pistol and aiming it at the man.

"My pip-boy." The man angrily replied. He carried a large plethora of scars; he seemed to be having a fever. He had a strange yellow bag hooked to his left forearm, with a wire leading into the skin in his hand. The bag had a radiation symbol on it too, so Shepard shifted his aim to avoid hitting it, should he shoot. The man had brown hair made into a ponytail behind his head, though he seemed to have patches of his hair missing.

"I haven't heard of anything like a pip-boy-"

"Stop this now!" The man in the bat costume demanded, shoving Shepard's weapon down. "We are going to have to work together to get out of this forest, hostilities will not help the matter."

"Perhaps we should exchange names; I don't wanna have to call you 'that bat guy' for the entire time we're here." The bald man said, leaning forwards slightly.

"That's a good idea! I'll start." The elderly man said. "I'm Isaac Clarke, CEC systems engineer."

"The Courier, saviour of the Mojave Wasteland." The jump suited man chipped in.

"Sergeant Cortez, stopper of the Timesplitters War." The bald man said in turn.

"Batman." The costumed man supplied.

"Commander Shepard, destroyer of the Reapers, killer of the Collectors and saviour of the universe." Shepard proclaimed, reciting the titles he had been showered with in a bored fashion.

"Let's go." Batman said, before trudging off into the woods, letting the others follow him.


	2. Chapter 2

The Test of Heroes

A fun crossover I made, mainly between White Noise, Slender, Dead Space, Fallout New Vegas, Mass Effect, Timesplitters and Batman. Other genres mentioned.

_Requiescat in pace._

_Ezio Auditore, Assassins Creed 2, Brotherhood and Revelations._

I do not own anything mentioned.

Shepard POV

Shepard trudged behind Batman restlessly, finding himself more impatient than usual. Maybe because he wasn't the one leading the squad for once, or because he was trusting four strangers to help him stay alive. They could be Cerberus, for all Shepard knew. Then again, Cerberus would openly use the technology these people were toting should they have it.

As Shepard was walking, he noticed Sergeant Cortez trip over a statue. He moved over to help him up, when he noticed how realistic the statue looked.

The statue was of a man with his legs spread out with his left arm on the floor, which seemed to have a stone sword in its hand. Out of the right hand, a small stone blade popped out and the statue seemed to have a hood over the persons face. The statue even had a very realistic beard.

"Wow." Shepard whispered, catching the ever alert Batman's attention. As Batman came over, he observed the statue, noting how amazing detailed it was.

"We need to keep moving." He gruffly said, before standing and turning around.

Shepard simply shrugged his shoulders as he exchanged a look with Cortez, before moving on.

Just as he was walking away however, he heard a slight cracking sound. He quickly turned around, activating his Omni-blade and raising it. He was lucky he did, as the statue he had been observing was now struggling to push its sword past his Omni-blade.

The statue seemed to be different now, as it had green lines waving all around its body, as well as illuminating the eyes bright neon green. The sword and dagger were also glowing, and seemed to be more resilient than actual stone would be to Shepard's blade.

Shepard grunted, trying to force back the sword, before activating an Omni-blade on his other arm. He then swung it at the statue, only for it to quickly jump back, causing him to swerve off balance. The statue then jumped forward, aiming a kick at his unprotected back, until Cortez kicked the leg viciously, shattering it into pieces.

"Oh yeah!" Cortez exclaimed, before picking up a rock with his temporal uplink and launching it at the statue.

The statue noticed this and rolled out of the way, seemingly ignoring its destroyed left leg. It then fired a concealed weapon from its right arm, launching a neon green projectile towards Cortez. He quickly rolled out of the way, missing the projectile by mere inches.

The Courier rushed up next, activating a set of T-51B power armour and a gauss rifle as he ran. He fired the rifle, successfully blasting the statues head from its stony shoulders. Surprisingly, it simply continued to fire its projectiles, now aimed at The Courier. His armour withstood the bullet, but it caused him stumble back a step.

Before another bullet could be fired, a vertical line of plasma burnt the firing arm off of the statues main body. The statue simply threw the sword it still held in its left arm to Isaac, throwing him back into a tree, but not impaling him since the sword shattered on contact with his armour.

Batman rushed up, throwing a concussion batarang at the statue. The statue fell to the floor, missing a chunk of its chest. Batman then ran up and dug an explosive batarang into the creatures neck before leaping away, watching the statues ceramic ashes plume around the area.

Shepard quickly ran up to the statue, before seeing that it was utterly destroyed, and the shattered chunks revealed a small tape recorder that the statue may have been concealing.

Shepard allowed the others to come closer, only to notice Isaac wasn't there. He quickly looked around for Isaac, only to see him slumped against a tree.

Isaac POV

Isaac groggily forced his eyes open before reaching for his plasma cutter, an instinct he had gained since the Ishimura. He quickly looked to the fight to see ashes plume around the area, which most probably meant the statue had been destroyed. He relaxed, and looked to the left.

He looked in the distance of the woods, only to see a hulking creature. Its bald head twitched erratically, and its muscled arms fell to its sides. The creature was wholly white, with muscles defined with pink. It was faceless apart from a feral, fanged maw of a mouth, and seemingly stared at the aftermath of the fight. Crimson red liquid dripped off of the hands of the creature, and Isaac's equipment seemed to malfunction and fall into static as he looked at the creature.

He quickly turned away, before noticing the ashes clear, and the others looking for him. Isaac quickly pulled himself up, and ran to them.

Shepard POV

Shepard watched Isaac run up to the group, relieved that they hadn't lost anybody.

"Isaac! We found this on the statue and were just going to play it. Come over here!"

Isaac simply nodded and joined the group, before listening to the tape recorder play.

"_Day 1…We are out here searching for… *static*… and have made little progress. I have…*static* … tape recorders around the area. We need to find out what is…*static*… the local people and we will find out!"_

Once the recording stopped, Shepard activated his Omni-tool, trying to clean up the recording, to no avail.

"Well that sucks." Cortez said, looking slightly glum.

"But we have a lead. There are tape recorders in the area, and they may tell us the whole story." Batman reasonably said, crossing his arms.

"We may find a way out along the way." The Courier wisely supplied.

"Any idea which direction we should go?" Isaac asked, letting his helmet form itself back around his head.

"Preferably one without any more of those statues." Cortez replied, indicating to the now destroyed statue.

At that moment, Shepards Omni-tool received a message.

"The hell?" Shepard questioned out loud as he read the message.

The message seemed to be two codex pages.

_Name: Ezio Auditore._

_Age: 60_

_Nationality: Florentine_

_Occupation: Master Assassin_

Codex page 2:

_Creature type: Reanimated golem_

_Fighting skills: That of the fighter before being encased in stone, magnified._

Shepard added them to his codex, before telling the others, "That was one Ezio Auditore, sixty year old Master Assassin."

"A master assassin? I've had run-ins with assassins before." Cortez said, chuckling to himself as he reminisced.

"Something must be here, encasing skilled fighters in stone, like a test." Batman theorized.

"And we're the next group." The Courier stated.


	3. Chapter 3

The test of heroes

A fun crossover I made, mainly between White Noise, Slender, Dead Space, Fallout New Vegas, Mass Effect, Timesplitters and Batman. Other genres mentioned.

_It's wanting that gets so many folks in trouble._

_John Marston, Red Dead Redemption._

I do not own anything mentioned.

I've gratefully received some assistance from Vergil1998 the Crossover King and Archer83.

Shepard POV

"So Isaac."

"Yeah?"

"What did you do before...here?" Cortez asked, as he held his rifle. Scanning the area revealed little, even to his sharp vision, but he had seen worse during his time in the Timesplitters War. From the far future to the distant past, there was little that could scare him easily after everything he had seen, lost, and done in a war that never was.

Batman suddenly held up a fist to get everyone's attention. "Be quiet. Listen... did any of you hear that sound?" Switching to night vision in his cowl, the Dark Knight slowly scanned the area for anything amiss. He hadn't gotten this far by letting his guard down and his instincts had served him well so far. Having dealt with every kind of criminal both insane and otherwise, it wasn't hard to imagine that he might have gotten a little jumpy, but nothing could be farther from the truth in his case.

The group keenly listened to their environment, trying to catch a trace of what Batman had heard. "I think you're just hearing things Cape Man." Cortez jokingly said, trying to alleviate some of the built up tension. It didn't work in Batman's case, but it had helped for some of the others as a few small smiles lit up on their faces for a second or two.

"Shut up Cortez, I hear it too." Shepard growled at the resident comedy relief. He was with Batman on this one since he had walked into far too many ambushes during the Reaper War to ignore his own finely honed senses. His gut said they were being watched, and it wasn't by friendly eyes either as he activated his Omni-blade on his right hand again. "Fan out, but keep each other in visual contact at all times."

Batman looked ready to argue since he was used to sneaking about, but a loud crack suddenly answered the question of if they were alone or not as a bullet whipped past Cortez's face, mere inches away from killing the man. The group swivelled round on their heels, with Cortez diving behind Batman for cover.

What looked like a statue of a stereotypical cowboy stood next to some trees, holding out two stone revolvers. Green lines made their way around this statue too, illuminating his eyes as did the Assassin's statue.

"I'm not falling for this shit again..." Shepard pulled out his pistol intending to shatter the statue, but it drew on him first and hit the Commander in the shoulder before he could get his gun even halfway up towards this latest enemy. "He quick drew on me?! Who is this guy?!" Shepard asked as he held onto his wounded shoulder, feeling a little blood from the wound seeping through his fingers before the built in medi-gel dispensers sealed his wound. His armor wasn't too badly damaged at least.

"Maybe you'll get another message saying so when we kill him!" Isaac bellowed, drawing his plasma cutter.

"Thanks for the tip Captain Obvious!" Cortez yelled, firing his plasma autorifle at the statue. The statue didn't so much as respond to the bullets pounding off of it, but when it barely dodged a grenade, it started to ramp its assault on the five up. The statue, lightning quick, fired at Cortez's weapon, blasting it out of his hand. It then fired Isaac's plasma cutter from his hand, much to his shock. The Courier's grenade launcher survived the dent the bullet left in its barrel, but the Courier dropped his weapon because of the vibration.

Before the statue could shoot Shepard's weapon, Batman swept the statue's legs from beneath it, causing it to fall face first onto the ground. The statue rolled backwards however, before unfurling a glowing green whip.

"He's going dominatrix on us!" Cortez yelled, rolling out of the way of a lash of the whip. "And not in a good way!" Why hadn't he taken that vacation with Harry Tipper when he had the chance? Cortez wasn't sure now but it was looking mighty tempting right about then. He probably could have gotten laid with a dozen different women by now but no, he had to be here.

"Just my luck!" Isaac responded, firing at the creature with a javelin gun. As this happened, Batman had been assessing the creature's weakpoints. A flying javelin, shot by Isaac, punched directly into the creature's shoulder, putting off its dead-eye aim, and causing it to miss him entirely.

Shepard purposely caught the statue's attention, and when it lashed it's whip at him he let it wrap around one arm while tugging on it and activating his omni-blade. "I've had just about enough of you!" Shepard yelled as he decapitated the stone cowboy with one powerful slash. "A little trick I learned from a friend."

"They work just like Necromorphs!" Isaac exclaimed as the statue continued to aim at Shepard with it's other hand. How it knew where he was without its head was beyond Shepard and it slowed him up. "The arm! Shepard, cut the arm off!" Snapping out of his shocked state, the Commander quickly did as Isaac had said and removed the arm in question, just in time to avoid getting a face full of stone lead. For good measure, Shepard did the same to the stone creature's legs and when it didn't get back up, only then did he retrieve his gun after deactivating his blade.

Shepard held the torso of the statue, with it having only an arm and body left. He then dropped it, before Isaac performed a spectacular curb stomp, crushing the torso into tiny pieces just to be sure.

"I think it's dead guys... unless the powder is going to try to kill us now. Don't breathe it in!" It wouldn't surprise the Courier since he hadn't seen anything so creepy in his life, and he had originally come from a nuclear wasteland. Giant ass bugs, mutant zombies, toxic plant life, and far more hadn't killed him, but this place made him real uneasy.

"We're all going to die here, you know that right?"

"We won't die, not if we stick together."

Batman said right behind the Courier, making the man jump since he hadn't heard him there until the last second.

"We each have our strengths, it's just a matter of forming a cohesive unit to survive whatever this place throws at us next."

"Batman is right, we stick together, we survive. It's that simple." Shepard quickly looked to all of the men around him and gave Batman a solemn nod. He reminded the Commander of Thane Krios, the way he moved and seemed able to analyze an opponent so quickly, but unlike the assassin, this guy didn't seem so willing to kill another human being. Luckily they weren't fighting people so it probably wouldn't be a problem for the Dark Knight.

"Hey guys!" Cortez exclaimed, kneeling down besides the ceramic crumbs of the statue they had smashed to pieces.

"Yes Cortez?" Shepard asked, waiting for the message about the man/statue they had beaten.

"There's a page here!" Cortez shouted, picking the page up.

"What does it say?" Isaac curiously asked. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like the answer. Something about all this reminded him too much of his battles against the Necromorphs and the Markers.

"Just a load of 'No's written all over the page..." Cortez muttered, looking at the hurried handwriting. Even he was a little creeped out by this little message. Something didn't seem natural about any of this, and he had faced trans-dimensional demons before. Time was funny that way.

"Let me see that." Batman murmured as he grabbed the sheet of paper from the man's hand.

"There's a hidden picture on this, covered by the handwriting on top of it. Analyzing it now." Tapping a button on the side of his cowl, Batman was able to see past the handwritten part and see only the picture. What was there put another piece to the puzzle on the table, but it didn't fit anything they had so far. It only added more questions. It was a hastily sketched drawing of a tall man in a tuxedo, with a blood red tie, and freakishly long arms. The drawing must have been incomplete, because no face was drawn onto the man.

Staring at it, Batman had to wonder for the briefest of moments if the picture's nonexistent face was somehow intentionally drawn like that, and it felt like it was looking right at him, but he dismissed the notion as he folded it up and put the note into his utility belt for now.

At that moment, Shepard received another message on his omni-tool.

_Name: John Marston_

_Age: 38_

_Nationality: Scottish-American_

_Occupation: Reformed cowboy outlaw_

"We destroyed a cowboy outlaw." Shepard monotonously stated, reading the message grimly. From the sounds of it he hadn't exactly been the nicest guy at first but he had somehow turned his life around. Redemption stories like that were rare and to see that they might have just put him into the ground wasn't sitting well with the Commander at all. Shepard decided to keep the rest to himself. The other men would mostly likely be bothered by this information as well. It was probably best not to tell them they had been forced to kill a good man.


End file.
